1. Field of the Invention
The invention is related to the management of risk in general and more particularly to an apparatus and method of managing risks associated with terrorism.
2. Related Art
Risk can be defined as probability*vulnerability. Probability is the probability that an undesirable event will occur. Vulnerability is susceptibility to the event multiplied by the consequences associated with that event. Managing risk involves the process of determining the risk and taking steps to decrease the risk by decreasing the probability or vulnerability, or both. Managing risk is an important task faced by people in many different situations. Insurance companies and financial planners manage risk to capital when deciding when to insure and what stocks on bonds to include in a portfolio. Homeowners manage risk when deciding whether to purchase a burglar alarm system. One particularly important form of risk management is terrorism prevention.
Terrorism is a world-wide problem. Unfortunately, many in the United States associate terrorism with certain Arabian and/or Islamic nations and view the threat of terrorism from this limited framework. However, as recent events such as the Oklahoma City bombing have demonstrated, terrorism is not limited to any particular nation, religion, political system, or ideology. Today, the problem has become far more complex and is rapidly changing.
One problem faced by those with responsibility for assessing the threat of terrorism and its prevention is the lack of suitable tools to help them perform their tasks. Known tools generally fall into one of two categories: a) terrorist attack damage assessors; and b) terrorist attack likelihood predictors (i.e., probability calculators). The first type of tool, terrorist attack damage assessors (i.e., consequence calculators), are generally computer based. These tools attempt to answer the questions like “What will happen if a car carrying a 500 pound bomb explodes at the front door of my building?” (Blast model tools) and “What will happen if a 50 gallon drum of nerve gas is opened in the parking garage?” (“CBR”—chemical, biological and radiological—tools). The tools, which typically employ complex computer modeling algorithms such as those found in CAD/CAM programs, have three important drawbacks. First, they require detailed information (which can be difficult, time consuming and expensive to obtain) to construct the model and are often not flexible enough to handle situations in which the detailed data is not available. It is likely that data required to use these tools on the Murrah building in Oklahoma City would still not be collected at this point due to the time and costs associated with collecting such data. Second, these tools require expertise on the part of the user. Third, and perhaps most importantly, programs such as these provide no guidance as to the likelihood that the attack will succeed (the accessability), the likely location of an attack (e.g., the front or rear of the building, which building, etc., the type of weapon (explosive, chemical, biological or radiological) likely to be used, and how to prevent or at least minimize the occurrence of the attack in the first place.
The second type of tool, terrorist attack likelihood predictors, are typified by paper and pencil questionnaires provided by government agencies to remote locations. These tools attempt to answer the question “How likely am I to be attacked by terrorists?” The form of the tool is generally a series of questions such as “Do you have any nuclear material at your facility?”, “Are you located in an urban, suburban or rural area? And “Are you a military or civilian installation?” These questionnaires award a certain number of points based on each answer and base the likelihood of terrorist attack on the total number of points. These tools also suffer from several serious drawbacks. While they may tell you that an attack is likely, they provide no guidance as to the nature of the attack and how to prevent it, provide no indication as to whether the attack will be successful, and provide no indication of the consequence of a successful attack.
Another problem faced by those charged with preventing terrorism is the lack of flexibility in adapting anti-terrorism plans. It has become the practice of many institutions to formulate an anti-terrorism plan that defines a number of threat levels. These plans are typically prepared by outside agencies or consulting firms based on individual knowledge and experience. Updating the plans based on changed circumstances requires the individual security specialists to be recalled, which is expensive and time consuming. Furthermore, the plans may not be appropriate for changing circumstances. By way of example, there may be great differences between a plan for high threat of terrorist activity on a military installation that was designed to protect mission-critical assets such as a weapons system and a plan for a high threat of terrorist activity on that same military installation when the high-threat condition is caused by a visit from a head of state or because of threatened attacks on troops rather than the weapons system. Furthermore, the source of the threat may also change its nature. A plan devised to stop a suicide car bomb attack favored by one known terrorist group may not be effective for a chemical attack favored by another terrorist group.
Changes to the plan may also become necessary because the site has expanded, or because of changes to the physical surroundings (e.g., new developments have been built in close proximity to a site previously surrounded by woods). Plan changes are also necessitated by the frequent changes to AT/FP doctrine, enunciated in sources such as DoD 2000.16, the Joint Service Integrated Vulnerability Assessment (JSIVA) Team standard operating procedures, and the J34 Installation AT/FP Planning Template, due to the evolving nature of the threat and lessons learned from previous attacks.